Rico Pichardo

After graduating from UChicago with a B.A. in Economics , Richard has been developing his expertise in data analysis and business operations. While advising the head of the tax agency of his home country, the Dominican Republic, on public policy issues, he finished a MA in Business Intelligence and Big Data from the EOI in Spain. He previously was the second employee in charge of user acquisition at Beepi – a Silicon Valley startup once valued at $2 Billion - and the eighth ops employee at Hostwise. Richard loves scuba diving, dancing and the outdoors.

3 ways to leverage your startup experience to get into a graduate program

Rico Pichardo, BA - UChicago

Being part of an early stage startup can incredibly challenging and enriching professional experience. To build a new business requires grit, risk-taking ability, leadership and creativity, qualities that admissions counselors value. You got to wear many hats and have gained unique insights and knowledge that you can bring into a classroom. That said, just because you were part of a startup, does not mean you have a silver bullet into the graduate program of your dreams. The way you craft your story and the experiences that you highlight as part of your startup journey will determine the impact that it will have on your admission process. Here are three ways you can make sure your startup story makes you a stronger candidate:

1. Focus on your most relevant tasks

When you are part of a startup, there are almost always many things to be done and not enough time. During my time at Beepi, an online used car marketplace, I participated in projects related to human resources, marketing, sales, operations and customer service. When I decided to apply to graduate programs in data analytics, I did not talk about all of my different roles, but about the intelligence reports I ran, how I built them and how they guided my decisions, because this was most relevant to the Big Data masters program I was targeting.

2. Highlight specific opportunities where the knowledge you will gain in the program will impact your job performance.

Applying to graduate school requires not only proving you are capable of handling the coursework but that the specific program you are applying for is exactly what you need to take your career to the next level. One of the best ways to do that is by giving concrete examples of a time where the expertise you want to gain would have empowered you to bring more value to your startup. For instance, if you are applying for a masters in artificial intelligence, mention how you could have implemented a specific machine learning algorithm to automate and optimize a particular process in your startup.

3. Align the organizational mission of the master program you are going for with the vision and goals that drove your decision to be at that startup.

When you join an early stage startup, you are taking a risk. You are forgoing structure and a steady paycheck for the opportunity to exponentially increase your career growth, your wealth and to change the status quo of a particular industry. This then creates a strong parallelism with the mission of graduate schools to build leaders in their particular fields. Your startup experience gives strong indication that you are already a leader. Let them see it. Align the way you communicate your personal qualifications – skills, life purpose, values, personality…- with the culture that drives the university program. For instance, the UCLA Anderson School of Management states that its mission is “to transform management thinking and prepare future leaders …for lives of significance.” You can then highlight your experience at a startup on the way the company was looking to transform the lives people by adding value to them.

Best wishes,
Rico Pichardo

Q: Why are you passionate about your academic field? When and how did you discover your love of your subject?

A:

I studied Economics in college out of a love for public policy and mathematics. During my years in high school, my passion for solving math problems motivated me to take extracurricular classes to increase my skills. Thanks to this training, I represented the Dominican Republic in the Iberoamerican Math Olympics and decided to follow a career path where I could continue to practice this mathematical mindset. At the same time, I was the president of the Human Development Clubs, an initiative from the United Nations Development Programme to promote the concept of human developments among high school students. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking in fronts of tens of students motivating them to pursue a social conscious life. This was also something that I wanted to include in my career. When it was the time to choose my major, I wanted to blend my passion for mathematics with my love for social impact. Economics was the way to do just that, and as such, I decided to apply to the University of Chicago, leader in economic thought that had significantly helped shaped Latin American economic policies in the last century.

After graduating from college, I came to the conclusion that the best way to make a lasting social change was through socially conscious businesses- like Dyad. I moved to Silicon Valley and joined as the second employee of Beepi, a peer to peer marketplace for used cars, that at its maximum point vas valued at $2 Billion. As the person in charge of user acquisition, I was consistently looking at our data to improve our processes. This is when I realized that the power of business intelligence to inform and influence decision making. I then decided to take a masters program on Big Data to break through the limitations of my current programming and statistical analysis skills. I have had ideas on how to improve and automate processes at previous jobs, but I did not have the technical fluency needed to implement them. In my previous job as an analyst in the Dominican equivalent of the IRS, there exists a wealth of data that I could be used for public benefit as part of my research efforts. By pursuing the master program in Big Data and Business Intelligence, I have become a data-driven processes builder, improver, and decision-maker.

Q: What are your three top recommendations for a student targeting a masters in your field? What if they are preparing to switch their major to your field?

A:Masters in Big Data and Business Intelligence:

Learn how to program in R or Python

Get exposure to Big Data technologies and play around with machine learning models

Find an open data set like this one , upload it a SQL server and do analysis of it preferably with R or Python but feel free to use excel as well

Switching to a major in Economics:

Make sure you have a strong background and interest in mathematics and statistics

Fulfill your Econometrics requirement and make sure you pay attention in that class

Take a class in public policy and business so you can start identifying what aspect of Economics you would like to focus on

Q: What resources can students use to educate themselves on your subject?

Q: What are your top tips to showcase an applicant's strengths to Admissions Officers?

A:

Showcase technical proficiency and experience the field of your interest. Admission Officers want to see that not only are you capable of handling the kind of work you will be doing, but that you know what it is about.

Make a strong case on why your career will get to the next level if you go that specific university and to that specific program. Admission Officers need to understand the impact that admitting you will have in your life and that your decision was based on extensive research, instead of the school’s reputation or visible merits.

Tell a story, not just state your resume. Go to the program’s website and read about the mission and vision of the program as well as the kind of people they are looking for. From your many strengths, choose the ones that speak directly to the values of the department and particularly, the program. From there on, tell your personal story based around the strengths you choose to highlight.

Q: Any pitfalls or mistakes an applicant should beware of as they apply to your program?

A:

Not using specific examples. Just stating that you are passionate about a topic or a university without saying why will not add any value to your application. In fact, it might hurt your application because if it indicates you have not done enough research on the program.

Saying too much about your personal life. Remember to build your essay around your core strengths and make sure that everything adds value to your profile as a student. Talking in detail about impactful events in your life might not necessarily contribute to your capacity as a graduate student of the program of your choice.

Q: Why did you apply to your university and program? What other universities and programs were you admitted to?

A:

When I was applying for college, I decided to apply to the University of Chicago, due to the school’s reputation in Economics. During the 1970s and 1980s, the “Chicago Boys” were a group of Chilean economists trained at the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago. After being accepted, I was still not sure because I was looking for a holistic experience where not only my mind would thrive, but where I could learn practical skills and I could also grow socially. I was also admitted to London School of Economics, Bentley University with a full scholarship, University of Miami and American University, the school’s reputation for being the place where fun goes to die scared me. As a result, I decided to visit as a prospective student. That night in the college was enough to make me fall in love with it. It confirmed the school’s intellectual rigor, but also allowed me see to the diversity and the undervalued, engaging and active sports and social life available.

In regards to my Masters degree, I had really specific needs for the kind of program I was willing to pursue at the time. It needed to be on data science, economically viable, lasting only one year and with enough flexibility so that I could continue working for the Dominican version of IRS. Based on the economic costs of data analytics programs in the United States, I decided to focus on European universities which tend to be cheaper. I was then accepted into the Escuela de Organizacion Industrial(EOI) based in Spain. I then looked into my funding options, and noticed that EOI had a scholarship agreement with the Ministry of Higher Education of the Dominican Republic. I then applied for a scholarship and got it. None of the universities offered to cover the same level of expenses as that scholarship and they required me to enroll full time. As result, so I decided to accept my invitation to join EOI’s Master in Business Intelligence and Big Data, and continue my job reforming the Dominican tax system.

Q: What are the common career paths for graduates in your field?

A: Graduates in Economics have a wide variety of career paths available for them. The most common ones are careers in finance such as investment banking and trading, as well, as consulting. That said, I have friends that have worked as administrators in private companies and that joined the government to do public policy in institutions like Central Banks and Ministries of Finance.
With a Master in Big Data and Business Intelligence, you also have a considerable amount of choices depending on what you want to focus on. There are four main areas: Data Scientist, Data Analyst, Data Engineer and Business Analyst.

Q: What aspects of the campus culture are your favorites? Which aspects surprised you? Which would you change if you could?

A: These last few years, I have grown increasingly fond of my undergraduate experience, reminiscing over the people I met, the ability to focus on learning for learning’s sake, and the sandbox-like environment that allowed for the pursuit of my curiosities. My first night at
UChicago, I found myself a part of a community that thrived on the cultivation of inquisitiveness and intellectual rigor. That evening, at International Pre-Orientation, I had the opportunity to connect with a group of individuals from several different countries including Bulgaria, Mexico, and France. I remember staying up until 3am discussing stimulating topics such as Sarkozy’s anti-veil statements in France, and how technology was continuously transforming human relationships. I could not be any prouder to have spent three years of my life in that environment.
UChicago campus culture is focused on what the university has coined as “the life of the mind”. Its smart, quirky, international and diverse student community guarantes an intellectual experience at all times, including social events. The school has a reputation for being the place where “fun goes to die” but that is not true. It us easy to find social events organized by student organizations –unless it was finals or midterm week – and there was always people willing to have celebrate and have fun with you. In the rare cases where the options on campus were limited, the whole city of Chicago was at your reach.
The only thing I would change is the lacking university spirit. When I visited my friends in other universities like Pomona College and Northwestern, I first noticed the considerably larger amount of branded merchandise and apparel worn by the students and spread out around campus. I was surprised by the capacity of sport and academic events to summon students who displayed fierce proudness of their school.

Q: What’s your favorite fun fact about your university? Any special events or traditions or legends?

A: UChicago is known for its provocative essay prompts. I love the fact that some of them are suggested by first year students, which highlights the quirky nature of the student community. One of my favorite traditions was the cultural show. Every year different cultural student organizations would participate in a show to perform in front of hundreds of students in a display of humanity’s cultural wealth. In fact, one year I had the opportunity to participate as part of the Latinamerican organization and dance to my country’s, the Dominican Republic, national genre called merengue.

Q: How did you spend your summer vacation during university? Any advice for making the most of summer?

A: During my time at the University of Chicago, I spent 75% of first summer doing an internship at of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Dominican Republic. The second one, I decided to take college classes to be able to graduate in three years, instead of the regular four. During both summers, I had the opportunity to take a couple of weeks off before the start of the college year, forming memories that I currently hold close to my heart. As you embark in your college journey, I recommend that you focus on gaining professional experience of various kinds. This will help you identify what kind of role you want when you graduate, as well as gain
knowledge and experience on the skills you need to gain to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Q: What makes you smile? Share more on a favorite hobby.

A: My favorite hobby is scuba diving. Since 2009, I have explored the underwater world, and every time it is feels like a new exhilarating experience. When you are in the ocean, you feel you are in an expectator in a different planet, with different rules and flora and fauna that you have never seen before. The colorful corals, the vast variety of fishes, the big sharks all conform a beautiful composition that my hobby grants me the opportunity to connect to.

Q: Why are you excited to mentor Dyad Scholars?

A: Mentoring Dyad Scholars represents a multicultural opportunity to deepen my purpose in life. I believe the that I was brought to this world to empower others to reach their dreams. By being a Dyad mentor I will be able to help others not make the same mistakes I did and use my experience and knowledge so that they can exponentiate their career growth. I am excited to help citizens from China, a country that I have felt a strong connection to ever since I was a kid. When I was in high school, I developed a strong sense of curiosity for Chinese culture. I took one-on-one Mandarin classes for one year. I begged my parents to take me on monthly exploration trips to our local Chinatown. I read the Art of War, and explored Buddhist concepts by listening to lectures from Allan Watts and studying Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner. Going to China was a dream that I was o able to accomplish in 2016. Now, not only do I want to go work with it, I am committed to explore and build long term local Chinese relationships.

Work with Rico Pichardo

Rico Pichardo mentors students like you through the university application process. Talk to us on WeChat or send a request form, and we'll set you up!

WeChat

Email

Phone

Rico Pichardo

Dyad Mentors guide motivated students through the university admissions process and help them develop the skills and network needed to launch an international career. Get in touch with us today for more information.

WeChat

Email

Phone

Who we are

Founded at Cambridge University in 2012, we provide mentorship for the motivated.